News

Penguins News

Crosby Receives Art Ross Trophy

by
Joe Sager
/ Pittsburgh Penguins

OTTAWA – Sidney Crosby picked up a little more luggage Saturday in Ottawa.

Crosby was presented with his Art Ross Trophy as the NHL scoring champion at the Brookstreet Hotel at a special NHL Awards ceremony. Crosby, only 19, became the NHL’s youngest scoring champ this season when he collected 120 point. He also has the distinction of being the youngest scoring champion in the history of major North American profession sports.

“You want to contribute and as an offensive player you want to do well. You want to help yourteamout every night,” Crosby said. “But this is just something that I think comes with hard work. If you worry about it, it’s probably not going to come your way. So my focus has always been on winning and helping my team and this is just something that comes along with it.”

Crosby joined Tampa Bay’s Vincent Lecavalier, who won the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy for most goals, and Minnesota’s Manny Fernandez and Niklas Backstrom, who won the William M. Jennings Trophy for the goaltenders who played at least 25 games on the same team and allowed the fewest goals.

On Thursday, Crosby displaced Lecavalier as the youngest captain in NHL history. Lecavalier commented on the NHL’s newest captain.

“You know what, I don’t think I can give any advice. I think he’s doing everything right,” Lecavalier said. “He’s a great leader. He’s already shown it. Came into the league at 18 with a lot of confidence and a lot of leadership. And he’s just going to get better and better every year. He’s 19 years old. I can’t even imagine how good and how great he’s going to be when he’s 26 and 27 years old. So just keep doing what you’re doing and things will just get better and better.”

Crosby intends to talk to Lecavalier about the nuances of being captain at such a young age. The two have another connection – both played junior hockey at Rimouski.

“I’m sure it’s something I’ll talk to him about,” Crosby said. “We also have to mention for us to come from Rimouski, I think that says a lot about their organization and I think that I owe them a lot of thanks, too, because for both of us we came into the league at a pretty young age, and you need to be prepared to do that. And I think they had a big part to do with that. So I think we’re both thankful going through Rimouski.”